Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity

Paperback | November 1, 1992

In the seventeenth century, a vision arose which was to captivate the Western imagination for the next three hundred years: the vision of Cosmopolis, a society as rationally ordered as the Newtonian view of nature. While fueling extraordinary advances in all fields of human endeavor, this vision perpetuated a hidden yet persistent agenda: the delusion that human nature and society could be fitted into precise and manageable rational categories. Stephen Toulmin confronts that agenda—its illusions and its consequences for our present and future world.

"By showing how different the last three centuries would have been if Montaigne, rather than Descartes, had been taken as a starting point, Toulmin helps destroy the illusion that the Cartesian quest for certainty is intrinsic to the nature of science or philosophy."—Richard M. Rorty, University of Virginia

"[Toulmin] has now tackled perhaps his most ambitious theme of all. . . . His aim is nothing less than to lay before us an account of both the origins and the prospects of our distinctively modern world. By charting the evolution of modernity, he hopes to show us what intellectual posture we ought to adopt as we confront the coming millennium."—Quentin Skinner, New York Review of Books

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With wisdom and wit, Stephen Toulmin challenges that human nature and society could be fitted into exact rational categories and explores the consequences of moving beyond it for our present and future world.

From the Publisher

In the seventeenth century, a vision arose which was to captivate the Western imagination for the next three hundred years: the vision of Cosmopolis, a society as rationally ordered as the Newtonian view of nature. While fueling extraordinary advances in all fields of human endeavor, this vision perpetuated a hidden yet persistent agen...

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With wisdom and wit, Stephen Toulmin challenges that human nature and society could be fitted into exact rational categories and explores the consequences of moving beyond it for our present and future world.

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Table of Contents

PrefacePrologue: Backing into the Millennium1. What Is the Problem About Modernity?Dating the Start of ModernityThe Standard Account and Its DefectsThe Modernity of the RenaissanceRetreat from the RenaissanceFrom Humanists to Rationalists2. The 17th-Century Counter-RenaissanceHenry of Navarre and the Crisis of Belief1610-1611: Young René and the Henriade1610-1611: John Donne Grieves for Cosmopolis1640-1650: The Politics of CertaintyThe First Step Back from Rationalism3. The Modern World ViewFashioning the New "Europe of Nations"1660-1720: Leibniz Discovers Ecumenism1660-1720 Newton and the New Cosmopolis1720-1780 The Subtext of ModernityThe Second Step Back from Rationalism4. The Far Side of ModernityThe High Tide of Sovereign Nationhood1750-1914: Dismantling the Scaffolding1920-1960: Re-renaissance Deferred1965-1975: Humanism ReinventedThe Twin Trajectories of Modernity5. The Way AheadThe Myth of the Clean SlateHumanizing ModernityThe Recovery of Practical PhilosophyFrom Leviathan to LilliputThe Rational and the ReasonableEpilogue: Facing the Future AgainBibliographical NotesIndex

From Our Editors

With wisdom and wit, Stephen Toulmin challenges that human nature and society could be fitted into exact rational categories and explores the consequences of moving beyond it for our present and future world.